Electronic Arts and BioWare’s upcoming third-person looter-shooter, Anthem, is set to release tomorrow (February 22nd, 2019) across PC, PS4 and Xbox One. However, reviews and previews have popped up and highlight nothing to write home about, but Piper Jaffray believes that gamers will buy the new IP due to a survey it conducted that shows a “surprisingly high level of purchase intent for Anthem.”

Anthem is on the brink of releasing to the public in full very soon — looking past all the early access ways to play the looter-shooter RPG. Well, although reviews and previews of the game are looking a bit down, Piper Jaffray maintains an “Overweight rating” on EA and raises the target from $99 to $111. Piper Jaffray even noted the potential for Anthem to become a “modestly sized addition.”

The above information comes from investor and industry-centric outlet seekingalpha.com that touches on the following points:

Piper Jaffray maintains an Overweight rating on Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) and raises the target from $99 to $111 citing the potential for “Anthem” to become a “modestly sized addition.”

The title is scheduled for a full release on February 22.

Piper’s survey of over 600 games suggests a 25% purchase intent for Anthem. For reference, a survey ahead of the “Call of Duty: Black Ops 3” release showed a 40% purchase intent, and the title sold about 24M units in its launch year.

EA shares are up 0.8% pre-market to $99.60.

Thanks to website gamingbolt.com we learn that the so-called “surprisingly high” purchase intent among customers via Piper Jaffray’s survey is based on this model:

“Our survey of >600 gamers indicates a surprisingly high level of purchase intent for Anthem. Specifically, our combined survey results show that ~25% of current console owners intend to purchase Anthem. For comparison, when we did a similar survey for Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 in Sep-15, it showed a purchase intent of 40% for that title (a game that went on to sell 23-24M units in its launch year).

Clearly, 25% of active console owners are not going to actually buy Anthem, but we are encouraged by the high level of interest. In fact, we were so surprised when we conducted a first survey in late January, which showed 22% buying intent, that we did a second (smaller) survey on 2/11 to ensure our initial findings were not off-base, and that second survey actually showed higher intent (35% buying intent for the second survey — for combined purchase intent between the two surveys of 25%).”

In case you don’t know, in a recent piece published by cnbc.com, the report highlights how some analyst and AAA game companies have “unrealistic expectations” that eventually hurt them due to overestimation(s).

Lastly, we’ll see how Anthem fairs when it releases tomorrow and if it will meet the multinational independent investment bank and financial service (known as Piper Jaffray) survey, or if EA and BioWare will drop the ball moving forward with Anthem’s gameplay updates and live service setup steering potential buyers and investors away.